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 < back to authors list Mervin Block:
"I didn't know whether I had it in me to write a book on broadcast newswriting," Block says. "I knew it would be a lot of work. What would I write about?" It seems, a lot. The first edition of Writing Broadcasting News - Shorter, Sharper, Stronger was published in 1987. The second edition came 10 years later, thoroughly revised and greatly expanded. Block said he probably rewrote every sentence in the first edition. "And I added so much material, it's now about 40 percent longer than the first edition," he said. "It's almost a different book." Although geared to professionals, Writing Broadcast News found a college following as a textbook. Among many schools using the book: University of Missouri, New York University, Notre Dame, Temple University and Emerson College. The book, Block notes, is one of the few devoted exclusively to newswriting. "You'll hear people say there's nothing to writing," said Block. "I think the more you know about writing, the harder it is to write. The less you know, the easier it is." The problem with broadcast newsrooms across the country is that they hire many people who've never studied journalism or broadcast newswriting, he said, or haven't been adequately trained -- or trained at all. "Maybe they took one class in broadcast newswriting, but it takes more than that," he said. "It takes a lifetime." Block should know. He began in newsrooms at 15. His interest in journalism whetted by his high school paper, Block applied for a job as a copy boy at The Associated Press's bureau on Chicago's LaSalle Street. "The guy wanted to see my work permit from the Board of Education," Block said. "I was only 15, so I couldn't get one, but I thought I could stall him. The Board of Education was only a block away from the AP, and in the AP's building was the Bureau of Vital Statistics. So all I had to do was get my birth certificate and go over to the Board of Education and get my work permit, but I was underage and I figured he'd forget about it. I was taking down baseball scores from a ticker, working for the AP. It was very exciting. On the fifth day, though, when I showed up without a work permit, he fired me." When Block was 16, he walked into the International News Service, later absorbed into United Press International. "The guy in charge had a list of names of a lot of kids who had already applied," said Block. "But on the day I arrived, a kid had quit or gotten fired and here I was a warm body on the scene. They probably figured that if they started calling these kids whose applications they had they'd probably get a busy signal or no answer or the kid's working someplace else or he's in jail, whereas this Block kid is on the scene and ready to go to work. So I became a copy boy at the International News Service." He later worked for the Chicago American: "It was a bigger, far more interesting place. So I got a job there as a copy boy. That was really thrilling because you could go down to the press room." He became a reporter at the American and eventually the editor of a black newspaper in Chicago. Block went on to earn a master's degree from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University and a certificate from Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism. He worked as a staff writer for the "CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite" and the "ABC Evening News with Frank Reynolds." He taught broadcast newswriting at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. Along the way, he served as executive news producer for WBBM-TV in Chicago, and wrote and delivered editorials for WNBC-TV in New York City. He has written news for Ed Bradley, Tom Brokaw, Walter Cronkite, Charles Kuralt, Charles Osgood, Dan Rather, Frank Reynolds, Diane Sawyer and Mike Wallace. Block won first prize three times for television spot-news scripts in the annual competition of the Writers Guild. He has also been a columnist for the Radio-Television News Directors Association magazine Communicator. The column, "WordWatching," like Block's first book, came about by chance. "I called the Communicator's editor in 1984 to find out whether he'd be interested in an article about broadcast newswriting," Block said. "Not a column, an article. He said he'd have to see it. I sent him a long article, about 1,500 words or so. Within a week, I received a letter from him asking whether I would write a column. I thought, holy smoke, I put everything I know into that article, I don't have anything else to say! But I thought, I can't say no, I can't pass this up. But I don't know what I'll be able to write. Even so, I said yes. The next month I wrote a column, and I kept that up monthly for 13 years. I don't know how I was able to do it." The RTNDA revamped the magazine in 1998, and now Block writes a column only a few times a year. Block has written three books in addition to Writing Broadcast News, including: Rewriting Network News: WordWatching Tips from 345 TV and Radio Scripts, in 1990, and Broadcast Newswriting: The RTNDA Reference Guide, in 1994. His latest book, the first intended as a college text, written with Joe Durso Jr. of the University of Montana, is Writing News for TV and Radio: The Interactive CD and Handbook, published in 1998. After you turn in the manuscript for your book, he said, that's when the work starts: "You get the proofs and you have to scrutinize them. After you've marked them up and sent them back to the publisher, they send you the corrected proofs and you have to make sure the corrections have been made and no errors have been insinuated. Later you get the corrected corrected proofs. Don't even get me started on problems with the index." He now holds workshops at television and radio stations, state broadcast associations and regional conferences. Ten days before the workshop, the news director sends Block a batch of scripts. He sets aside 50 that illustrate points he wants to make, blacking out anything that identifies the writer. At his workshop, to build a foundation, Block spends the first two hours showing the transparencies of news scripts he has collected throughout the country that illustrate the points he wants to make. In the third hour, he shows the station's scripts. In the afternoon, the news pros write. "As I go around the country, I collect a wide variety of scripts, TV and radio," said Block. "At workshops, I take these scripts apart on the screen. I don't say this script is a disgrace to humanity, but I say there are flaws, pointing out what is wrong and how it can be improved." Most of his "WordWatching" columns have been based on scripts -- with names of writers deleted or blocked out to protect the guilty. "I've collected a lot of good scripts and a lot of flawed scripts, so I have a lot of material to draw on," he said. "To become a writer of any consequence, you have to have broad experience, acquire an extensive vocabulary and have something to say," said Block. You also need a good editor, he said: "Every writer needs an editor. You need an editor who can be a teacher; an editor who is kind but frank." "Writing takes work, and work works," Block said. "I kept going to school and was learning on the job at the American. One way a reporter learns is when he turns in his copy and sees his copy in the paper with any changes. He sees what a copy editor has done--deleted a word, a sentence -- and he learns." — reported by Kim Pawlak, 1999 |
